Chapter 3: Training Days The Hard Ways ID#12205 Togood

……………………………………………….Chapter 3: Training Days the Hard Ways………………………………………………….

Drift wanted me to get ready for training, so I headed for bed. I like a good sleep to recharge and dream peaceful sweet dreams.  I was having a wonderful dream about the life I had had with my wife and kids.

 My dreams, like movies playing back memories of the great times we had together and watching the kids growing up playing ball and taking dance lessons. My wife Beth always making me laugh with her silly antics, Bret doing his funny touchdown dance and Susan on her way to becoming the graceful ballerina I knew she would always be. I was having the greatest dream but the dream ended abruptly with horribly great banging sounds of crashing metal and loud screams.  Just as the crash took my family, the sounds of Drift beating a metal trash can and screaming, “WAKE UP! YOU GOT WORK TO DO!” waking me at 5 am ended my sweat dream.  I was groggy and not amused.

I bolted out of bed, startled by the rude awakening I just received and fired off an energy blast through sleepy eyes that nearly struck Drift. “Don’t you ever wake me like that again”, I yelled.  You could get hurt like that. Drift kind of laughed and said, “Sorry about that but at least I know how quickly your fight responses are.” He said, “Not bad but always be ready for anything at anytime. Now get dressed and be on the practice field with the rest of the team in ten minutes for your first lessons.”

Drift began the first lesson by laying down a little truth about these morphons bombarding us constantly. He said, while we all manifest powers and strengths differently, you should understand as long as these morphons continue to flow down upon us, our powers will continue to increase and with training, study and sheer will. Eventually, we may all have similar abilities but we’ll be strongest in one.  Drift was an elemental, whatever that meant.

Drift explained, “I am an Elemental and Elementals have the ability to control and manipulate the elements. Not only can we control the elements of wood, earth, water, fire and metals by simple thought, we can command the transmutation of all elements on the periodic table for devastating offense and defense.  Allow me to demonstrate.”

Drift began his first demonstration. I was still a bit groggy from just waking up and I yawned and stretched out loud disturbing his concentration and he turned to me un-amused by my rudeness and turned the ground below me into a watery muddy mess to which I sank up to my arms. “What the hell!” I hollered.

 Drift hollered back,”What are you going to do! Protect yourself! Will the elements around you! Concentrate! Think! Hurry! Save yourself, “Mr. ToBad”, he taunted. You’re sinking faster! Do something to protect yourself or you will be buried alive!

 “Think dummy”, he barked. The answer is simple. Use the elements around you and control them with your will!

By know I was a bit scared and miffed at the same time. That muddy mess was thickening and almost above my chin. I had to calm myself and think then I remembered the way out of quicksand.  I needed a rope or a stick of some kind to get out of this mess. In my mind, I saw a thick vine growing fast towards me and as my anxiety calmed I was able to will a vine of oak to actually grow towards me and wrap around my arms.  I sank even further. The mess Drift put me in was now above my mouth. I was almost buried.

Drift Yelled at me, “Good! You have a little elemental in you, but you’re only halfway to escape! You better hurry!” I thought to myself, “You son of a, you’re not making this any easier. When I get out of this mess, we’re gonna have a prayer meeting.” I concentrated the hardest I probably ever had and willed the oak vine to grow away from me, pulling me out of Drift’s thick muddy mess. I was safe but I was wet, filthy and angry.

Drift walked over to me, smiled and apologized for his pedagogical way of teaching.  He said, “Man, I’m sorry I had to teach this lesson in such a manner but time is short and we need capable fighters to take on The Legion and need them quick.  The emotions you felt in the mud pit propagated a need for resolution. You were able to calm your mind and think and to concentrate and use the will of your mind to create what you needed from the elements to resolve the problem. You might have done it a bit faster though.”  I looked at him and growled under my breath as he pushed me further.

I said, “I’m all wet and dirty and my feathers are all matted with mud.  I ought to give you a good punch in the mouth!”  Drift replied, “Whoa truckin’ horse, whoa truckin’ horse, you need to calm down. You got a short temper don’t ya? You just learned what you can do with the elements, use your head and think. Will the wet to evaporate off of you then will the sandy mud back to the ground. After some heavy concentration I was able to make that happen.”

“As for your wings, you can make them appear and disappear as needed with practice now.  Remember, everything around you is an element and you can learn to control them all. Here, take this book I wrote on controlling the elements and read over and over. “It’s called “How to Win Friends and Influence Their Elements.” We laughed, goooood book title, I thought.  Drift had one more thing to show me.

“Now that you can control the basics of the elements and you got my book to read for further study, let me show you a small example of how powerful the elements can be.  You see that old Chevy truck over there?”” Yes”, I said. Drift snapped his fingers and the truck and all its parts were reduced to separate piles of the elements that it was built with.  I slowly turned my head to look at Drift all perturbed and I Hulk punched him right in the mouth. “That was my old Chevy truck! Now fix it back!” Drift got off the ground and laughed and said, “Hehehe, you do got a short temper! But nope!  Read the book and use the truck for practice and make that old truck look new again besides you got wings when you need them, you don’t need a truck.  You got about a week to practice before I hand you over to Uptown Knight for physical training. Strong body, strong mind. You’ll thank me later.” He flew off as I cussed a bit to myself and thought, you irritating joker, we gonna get along just fine.

*More to come*